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Unfolding a chronological path through 50 years of art history, this exhibition begins with postwar abstraction, moves on to the historical and visual thrill of "alternative modernisms," and ends in the swarming and seductive experiments of the 1980s and 1990s.

Mid-Century Radical
The Shape of Time begins with postwar American and European abstraction. Chronological but never canonical, this installation of High Modernist painting and sculpture presents moments of classicism and radicality in the work of a selection of artists, including Lucio Fontana, Alberto Giacometti, Hans Hofmann, Ellsworth Kelly, Franz Kline, Barnett Newman, Isamu Noguchi, Ad Reinhardt, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still.

American Standard
This section of the exhibition contains a selection of the Walker's Pop Art holdings as well as works by the movement's progenitors--Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. Centered on a classic ensemble of Andy Warhol “grocery carton” sculptures, the installation also features work by Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, and Edward Ruscha. Multidisciplinary experimentation will be represented by Walkaround Time, a stage set created by Jasper Johns for a dance choreographed by Merce Cunningham, both of whom took Duchamp's legendary work The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) as the source for their inspiration.

Variations on Convention
The last gallery belongs to the complexity and diversity of the 1980s and 1990s. A cross-generational installation demonstrates, through painting and sculpture, figuration and abstraction, that cultural and critical inquiry can live happily together with lyrical sensuality. Artists represented in this section include Chuck Close, Willem de Kooning, Robert Gober, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Sherrie Levine, Glenn Ligon, Richard Mucha, Chris Ofili, Richard Prince, and Christopher Wool.

The installation of the Walker Art Center's collection is made possible by the Henry Luce Foundation, Inc.